d?

Haec ubi locutus foenerator Alphius,
Jam jam futurus rusticus,
Omnem relegit Idibus pecuniam,
Quaerit Calendis ponere.

They will cultivate the _Caisse d'Eglise_, under the sacred auspices of
this prelate, with much more profit than its vineyards and its
corn-fields. They will employ their talents according to their habits
and their interests. They will not follow the plough, whilst they can
direct treasuries and govern provinces.

Your legislators, in everything new, are the very first who have founded
a commonwealth upon gaming, and infused this spirit into it as its vital
breath. The great object in these politics is to metamorphose France
from a great kingdom into one great play-table,--to turn its inhabitants
into a nation of gamesters,--to make speculation as extensive as
life,--to mix it with all its concerns,--and to divert the whole of the
hopes and fears of the people from their usual channels into the
impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who live on chances. They
loudly proclaim their opinion, that this their present system of a
republic cannot possibly exist without this kind of gaming fund, and
that the very thread of its life is spun out of the staple of these
speculations. The old gaming in funds was mischievous enough,
undoubtedly; but it was so only to individuals. Even when it had its
greatest extent, in the Mississippi and South Sea, it affected but few,
comparatively; where it extends further, as in lotteries, the spirit has
but a single object. But where the law, which in most circumstances
forbids, and in none countenances gaming, is itself debauched, so as to
reverse its nature and policy, and expressly to force the subject to
this destructive table, by bringing the spirit and symbols of gaming
into the minutest matters, and engaging everybody in it, and in
everything, a more dreadful epidemic distemper of that kind is spread
than yet has appeared in the world. With you a man can neither earn nor
buy his dinner without a speculation. What he receives in the morning
will not have the same value at night. What he is compelled to take as
pay for an old debt will not be received as the same, when he comes to
pay a debt contracted by himself; nor will it be the same, when by
prompt payment he would avoid contracting any debt at all. Industry must
wither away. Economy must be driven from your country. Careful provision
will have no existence. Who will labor without